Walking on the earth 2
by Scarletstorm7
Summary: What happens when the four fallen come to earth again? This is a continuation/ sequel of Evergreendusk's stories.
1. Chapter 1

I **guess I finally decided to stop being a procrastinator and actually do something. So here you go, the sequel! Before you start reading,though, here are some random things you have to know:**

 **not read this if you haven't read w.o.t.e 1 and walking on erdas by Evergreendusk**

 **2\. I didn't write those two stories,so do not expect them to be the same as mine.(Also, this story is in my point of view, I was known as Scarlet in the previous stories.)**

 **3\. This is my first story, so plz don't judge!**

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 **Sorry if it was a loooong time since you guys have read evergreendusk's stories, so if you guys need a quick review, I suggest you guys reread walking on Erdas chapter 5. And if you guys feel like you remembered everything, feel free to read on.**

I closed my eyes as the sensation of cross-world travel swept over me, but all too soon, it was over. I landed on my face on a hard dirt ground. At least there was a bit of grass on it, not that it helped. I looked up just in time to see Alicio fall out of the portal and land on top of me.

"Oof. I complained. Could you have landed somewhere else?"

"It's not like I can control my landing when my brain is all messed up by portal travel?!" Retorted Alicio. But before I could answer, Abeke fell out of the portal and landed on Alicio. Then Meilin landed on top of Abeke, and everyone landed on top of the person before, until we were just a pile of people on the ground. Because I was at the very bottom, I had to wait until everyone else got up.

"I am never volunteering to be first through a portal again." I mumbled.

" Is everybody okay?" Asked Alicio.

"Yes!" Said Abeke, Rollan, and Conor.

"Sort of" Said Meilin. "I'm okay, but my hair is NOT." Everybody stared at her. There was _one_ strand of hair out of place. "Whatever, carry on." Muttered Meilin.

I squinted at our surroundings, we looked like we were in a park. There were no other people around, except for a man walking towards us. Or at least he _looked_ like he was walking towards us.

"Scarlet?" I heard Alicio's voice ask,expectantly. I jerked back to attention.

"Oh. Yeah, I'm okay." I quickly added.

Just then, the man I had seen walking towards us came up to us and stopped in front of us.

"Greetings,"he said."I am a messenger from the alien institute, and I have come to inform you guys that...that..."

He pulled out a piece of folded paper and opened it up." Oh right, I have come to inform you that you guys have been traveling too much between worlds and that disrupts the natural order of the worlds. So you guys have to report to the alien institute for severe punishments."

"Did he just forget his lines?" Whispered Rollan in Conor's ear.

"Woah ,woah ,woah. Said Alicio. "Why should we go to the alien institute with you if you're just gonna give us a 'severe punishment'?"

"Because if you don't go, you guys are getting an even more severe punishment. And I'm not the person giving the punishment, by the way. That would be our awesome leader."

" Well, if we don't go, how are you supposed to give us a punishment?" Retorted Alicio. Dammm, sometimes Alicio was a smartmouth, and in a good way. As in, she really knew what to say.

" Listen, How about you get your _leader_ to come and tell us all this?"I suggested. Then we'll reconsider,maybe.

" Sure... I'll tell my leader." said the man , and with that, he just walked away.

" Umm, should we be worried?" Asked Abeke, unsure. "Because he sounded like his leader really wanted to do something to us, and you know, we _have_ been jumping around worlds a lot lately..."

" I don't think we should be worried, for now at least." I said hesitantly. But I really didn't know.

 **Ooh, what's gonna happen to us? Sorry I'd this chapter was a bit boring, but it gets better , I promise. This was more of an... intro. Plz review, and I'll try to get the next chapter out as soon as I can.**

 **~Scarlet**


	2. Homecoming disasters

**Sorry it took so long for me to post this chapter, but I've been really busy these weeks, so maybe I should shut up and get on with the story. Here's the next chapter!**

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"Siri, where are we?" Said Alicio into her phone.

"We are on earth, Alice."replied Siri.

"No, _where_ on earth are we? And don't say Canada, because we know that already." Alicio said again.

We waited for a few moments while Alicio tried to reason with her Siri, trying to figure out where the portal had dropped us.

" Is there such thing as controlling where we land?" Asked Abeke. "I mean, last time we went to Erdas, it just dropped us on Greenhaven. And now we're in some random park."

"Finally!" Announced Alicio. 'We're in Central Park.'

"Okay, people. Let's get going then." I said as we started down one of the trails that led out of the park.

Conor released Briggan to let him stretch himself out. Me and Alicio both opened our mouths at the same time to scream about how we were supposed to _not_ be noticeable, but a guy that worked at the park beat us to it.

"Excuse me, kid, but dogs have to be on a leash." He told Conor.

"But-" Started Conor

"No buts, those are the rules." Said the man.

"Yeah well he's not a dog." Said Conor. "He's a wolf".

Me and Alicio cringed. That was exactly the opposite of keeping your alien identity a secret, especially when there were alien instituters who were looking for us to give us a 'severe punishment.'

The man that worked in the park looked shocked for a second, he pulled out his phone, said something about calling wildlife securities, and ran away yelling something into his phone in a panicked voice.

"Umm.. is 911 wildlife securities?" Asked Rollan after an awkward pause.

"Nooo..." I answered, uncertain. "Is that what he dialed?"

"Yeah, " Answered Rollan " Is that supposed to be a bad thing?"

I thought I was gonna freak out. "Yes that IS a bad thing , are you _sure_ that that's what he dialed?"

" I'm sure," answered Rollan. " having Essix out helps enhance my vision."

I wanted to slap myself. Way to get in trouble on your first day back on earth.

"ALICIO!" I yelled, running over to where she was harassing Conor about what he did wrong.

" _Conor,_ on earth we don't walk our wolves in the park," she told him impatiently, like it was basic knowledge. Okay, it _was_ basic knowledge.

" Well then where do you walk your wolves?" Asked Conor.

" We DON'T walk our wolves!" Said Alicio. "In case you haven't noticed, nobody on earth has a spirit animal!"

"Okay, okay." Said Conor, putting Briggan in passive state.

I took the opportunity to tell Alicio about how the guy called 9-1-1 and basically how our return to earth was turning out to be an epic failure. Not a thrilling homecoming, if you asked me.

As if on cue, we heard sirens on the street. Perfect timing. Through the canopy of trees, I could already see policemen getting off their cars.

"So what do we do now?" Asked Meilin, a hand on the hilt of her sword.

"No, Meilin. We are _not_ going to fight the police." Said Alicio in a tone that wasn't open to discussion. "And no offense, but even you wouldn't stand a chance against modern weapons."

"So what _do_ we do then?" Asked Meilin impatiently, sliding her sword back into the sheath.

"We run."

Nobody needed to be told twice. We exploded down the trail, running as fast as we could. I did _not_ want to have to answer to the police. What was I supposed to say? That the four main characters from my favorite book series jumped out of their story and came to earth? I felt momentarily dizzy as I realized how true thatl was.

We ran, as fast as our legs could carry us, hopefully before the police saw us. Which turned out to be a bad idea. Five minutes later, the four fallen were so far ahead of us that me and Alicio could barely see them.

"You know," I said to Alicio as we ran."I think we need to improve our stamina."

Alicio looked at the four specks in the distance, then looked back at me."I think so too."

~…~…~…~

Finally, we caught up to the four fallen at the end of trail, nearly falling over ourselves with exhaustion.

"What took you guys so long?" Asked Meilin incredulously, like she didn't get why we had been going so slow.

"What took you guys so _short?_ " I asked, out of breath. "Just so you know, that speed was paranormal."

Meilin crossed her arms. " THAT, is NORMAL SPEED. It's the speed necessary to stay in front of the oathbound."

"Well in our defense, we're not constantly being chased by oathbound, possessed wyrm freaks, or conquerors all the time." I retorted. "Not exactly the same workout that you guys get every day."

"Good point," said Rollan, jumping into the conversation. "Totally different lifestyle."

" It's a messed up life." Sighed Abeke. "But I wouldn't give it up."

The others nodded in agreement.

With that being said, we all turned to go to Alicio's house, because it was closer.

" Woah woah woah," Said Rollan." Do we even know where we're going?"

"YOU don't." I responded.

"Hey do you guys have horses or something?" Asked Conor. "I'm kind of tired."

" Oh no, not _horses._ " Complained Rollan.

"Whoops, sorry man, I forgot how much you hated horses." Said Conor sympathetically.

" We're not going to ride horses," said Alicio matter-of-factly. " And since we didn't happen to have any money on us when we came to Erdas, we're gonna have to walk all the way home."

"Oh no!" Said a voice.

I looked in that direction, and saw a single red apple in the bare winter branches of the trees in the park. " Umm, did that apple just talk?" I asked, uncertain.

" Yes, I just did." Said the voice again. "Is there a problem with that?"

Nobody answered. I guessed that they were too busy being shocked.

"The only problem is," Said Rollan breaking the silence," Is that apples aren't supposed to grow on oak trees." He stated.

" Oh no!" Said the apple again, and promptly disappeared.

One look at everyone else's astonished expressions told me that I hadn't been hallucinating. Either that, or we were all hallucinating.

" Okay..." said Alicio.

What a weird start back on Earth.

 **Again, I'm sorry this took so long. I know the talking apple is weird, but it'll all make sense in the end. Plz review and comment, I would like to know how I'm doing.**

 **~ Scarlet.**


	3. Fruit fight

**Sorry I haven't been on lately, I was very very busy with a lot of stuff that I'm not gonna get into. Just a warning, this chapter is gonna be really weird, so don't freak out because I promise that by the end of this story, all of it is gonna** **make sense. ;) ;)**

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(Continuing from last time, sorry if that was a long time ago. Plz try to remember what happened last time, but if u don't, feel free to be mad at me for not updating sooner.)

We took a shortcut through the mall-which was a bad idea.

The four fallen, especially Abeke, wanted to go to _every single store_ no matter what it sold.

"Hey can we go to that store?" Asked Abeke as if on cue.

"No, Abeke,you don't need to get beer from the liquor store." Responded Alicio

"What about that one-"

"You _don't_ need glasses from the optometrist either." Answered Alicio exasperatedly. Was a mall this exciting? And plus, it wasn't like they hadn't been to the mall the last time they were on earth.

"Hey!" Said Abeke again. Oh no. Here we go again.

"Can we go to _that_ store?" She asked.

I was about to say no again when I realized she was pointing at a random food store. I kinda wanted some food right now. "Sure" I said instead. We went into the store and walked around. Well, the four of them were walking around. Me and Alicio were just following them ,being bored and giving the occasional 'uh huh' to an overenthusiastic comment about how cool stores on earth were.

Suddenly, Meilin gasped.

I whipped around, expecting...well, I don't even know what I was expecting, but I was not expecting what I saw. Because I guess I was expecting something far stranger than that. Meilin was standing there staring at something on a high shelf.

"I remember this," she said in a super excited non-Meilin kind of way. Yikes, portal travel must've really been messing our brains up. "It's pop!" She exclaimed. "It's THE best food on all of Erdas and earth!" "I NEED to get some of that."

She reached for a can of pop, but the problem was that it was too high up. She tried jumping, but it didn't work either. All of us were smart enough not to laugh at this, but it was honestly pretty funny. The great Meilin, hero of Erdas, couldn't reach a can of pop.

"Someone needs to grow taller." Commented Rollan.

Meilin glared at him. "Once I get that can of pop,I'm going to smash you in the face with it."

Rollan faked a hurt voice. "I can't believe you would do that to me." He joked.

"The smart thing to do right now," said Alicio,"Is to shut up and hope she doesn't get that pop."

But I guess the hero's of Erdas really could do anything, because Meilin backed up two steps and leaped at the shelf,kicking off the middle of it, then kicking off the middle of the shelf opposite off it,and grabbing the can of pop before landing perfectly. I vaguely remembered her doing this in one of the books to get onto a roof.

" Well, that works too." Said Alicio.

" Oh no, is she gonna smash me in the face now?" Asked Rollan.

Meilin smirked and cocked her arm back like she was going to throw the can of pop at Rollan's face. Rollan flinched. We all froze, waiting for her to throw the can of pop. It was really stressful suspense.

Finally, Meilin laughed and let her arm drop. "Did you really think I was going to smash you in the face?" She asked.

"Well yeah," Mumbled Rollan.

" No kidding, your face wouldn't look as good with it smashed in by a pop can." Said Meilin with a slight smile." It would look horrible. I wouldn't actually do it."

Wait. Did Meilin just admit that she thought Rollan was good looking? One of these days I should get paid for fangirling. I would be a millionaire.

* * *

After a while we wandered into the fruit section of the store. The four of them launched into a conversation about which fruits existed on Erdas too. I tuned out for a while, leaning against a table of bananas. After a few minutes, I became aware of something nudging my hand. I looked down, and saw a banana. I was about to turn back when I heard a voice.

"Psst!" It said. "Bananas are the best fruit, right?"

I screamed and jumped back.

"Woah, calm down." Demanded Meilin."What happened?"

I tried to form words, but I somehow couldn't. Did that Banana seriously talk?

Meilin drew her sword and stalked menacingly towards the table of Bananas, ready to confront whatever it was that I had been screaming about.

She walked a full circle around it, finding no threat.

"Scarlet, there's _nothing here._ Only Bananas." She poked the nearest Banana, which just happened to be the one that talked.

"Psst! It said again. Bananas are the best fruit, right?"

Meilin looked startled for a second. "No." She said finally. "Lychees are the best fruit."

Suddenly, a voice sounded from a pile of Lychees. A small lychee bounced in the air. "Yeah Lychees! Lychees are the best fruit!"

"No, watermelons are the best fruit." Said a watermelon, rolling off a pile of watermelons.

All around, different fruits started arguing about what was the best fruit. My mind was whirling. What in the world was happening!? This was totally insane, was I dreaming?

Suddenly, the Banana screamed "I declare war in the name of Banana!" It launched itself at a mango. All the fruits let out similar idiotic battle cries and fruit started flying.

"Get behind a shelf!" I yelled. We all ran behind a shelf and stayed there until the noise died down. Even though the noise was deafening, I realized that only one of each kind of fruit was talking and flying. The others were all normal.

Finally, we dared get out from behind the shelf-and we all groaned simultaneously.

There were fruit splatters on the ground, on the walls, on the piles of normal fruit, and even on the ceiling.

To make things even worse, a lady that worked at the store came in. " I hope you kids are planning to clean this up." She said, throwing us a broom and leaving. We all groaned again.

Nobody moved for a while, we all stood in silence, probably thinking about how strange all of this was. Abeke broke the silence.

"This peach pit looks so weird", she said, picking up a seed from a smushed peach. I peered at it. It _was_ weird. It was oddly smooth and looked almost metallic.

" Maybe it's a degenerate." Offered Alicio.

Right then, the pit slipped out of Abeke's hand and to my surprise, the smushed peach wrapped itself around it and solidified, turning back into a fruit. I realized that all the fruits hs reanimated themselves and had floated back to their piles. We didn't have time to contemplate this, because the next moment, the lady who worked on the store came back.

" Nice work , kids. You may go now." We didn't need to be told twice. We ran out of the store, and I thought I was probably not gonna ever come back again. Creepy.

 **I know this chapter was very weird, but it all leads up to something that makes sense, I promise. Plz plz plz review, let me know what I'm doing right or wrong, and I'll try to post a new chapter as soon as I can.**

 **~Scarlet**


	4. Back to it again

**Hi. This chapter is still continuing from last time, and I'm so sorry if that was a month ago. I'm really, really sorry and I guess it's no use saying that lame 'I was busy' thing again. I really need to update more, don't I? So to make up for this, here's an extra long chapter.**

* * *

FINALLY we made it to Alicio's house. I swear I never thought getting home was so hard. The good news was, we were there now. I would have loved to say that there was no bad news, but that's not how life worked. So, unfortunately, there was a squadron of six or seven alien instituters standing on the front steps.

" There's _more?_ " Asked Alicio, mirroring my thoughts. I was gonna go in and pass out on the couch, but now we had more problems.

As soon as the people from the alien institute starteyd talking. " This morning, when our messenger came to you in the park, you asked for clarifications."

"Yes." I answered.

The alien instituter started speaking again, but Alicio interrupted him.

" Wait." She said sharply. "How did you know I lived here? And more importantly, how did you know we were coming here?" Hey, that was a good point. It made me kind of suspicious too.

" We have our ways of finding out." Said the alien instituter in a tone that said this was the end of the discussion. It almost seemed as if he didn't want to say something.

Meilin noticed it too. "He's keeping something hidden." She whispered. " And I don't think it's good."

I didn't, either.

" We have now come with clarifications,"announced the alien instituter. "For traveling excessive times without permission between worlds and deranging the natural order of the worlds, the punishment can range from a simple warning to death."

I stood frozen , in shock. I had expected a lot of things, but I didn't think they would kill us.

Rollan, on the other hand, had other thoughts.

" That is so _VERY_ clear." He said sarcastically. "I mean, there's totally no difference at all between getting a warning and dying, right?"

He had a good point. There was a very big range of stuff between getting a warning and dying. In fact, I didn't even think they clarified anything at all.

" We are not playing your games, kid." Said the alien institute menacingly. "Last chance. Come with us the easy way or the hard way."

"Well what if we don't?" Asked Rollan.

" Well then we have more than a few tools-or weapons if you prefer it at our disposal."

" You can't just shoot us," said Alicio equally menacingly. "The government can sue you."

The alien instituter smiled wickedly. "We ,are a government sponsored organisation ."

It was clear at this point that we had to make a decision,now. The four fallen exchanged glances like as if they were silently communicating with their eyes. How did they even do that?! Finally, they seemed to make a decision.

" We choose option three." Announced Meilin.

" Wich is...?" Asked the alien instituter.

Meilin punched him in the face so hard he fell over.

"This."

The remaining alien instituters tried to attack Meilin, but before they could do anything, they were all unconscious or running away.

Nice job, Meilin.

At last, we walked into the house and all collapsed on the carpet. It was about dinner time, but nobody was really intent on eating. Sleeping was the main preoccupation right now.

The room blurred as I drifted off.

~…~…~…~

Despite everything, time didn't stop for us when we were absent from earth.

Despite everything, life didn't stop for us.

Despite everything, school didn't stop for us.

So here comes the big fat truth. We still had to go to school the next day.

Because no fangirl would dare split Reilin up, Rollan and Meilin came with me to my school while Conor and Abeke went to Alicio's school with her.

I walked into my first class of the day with an excuse ready.

"Hi." I said to my teacher. "I wasn't here for two weeks because I was sick. But I'm better now, so good for me. These two people are following me around today because they're exchange students and I'm in the ambassador club." I hoped nobody knew that I wasn't actually in that club. Before the teacher could say anything about how student council was supposed to take care of exchange students, I dragged Meilin and Rollan over to a random seat and sat down.

My head was swimming with all the things that could go wrong. What if they summoned their spirit animals again and caused a mess like last time? What if someone discovered that they were from a book series? What if,what if,what if...? I was so absorbed in my paranoia that I didn't even realize that the bell was ringing.

Meilin shook me,non too gently.

"Wake up, Scarlet. Time for the next class."

I got up and walked out of the classroom, Meilin and Rollan following behind.

"Remember," I told them. "If someone asks you guys' names, say a normal earth name, okay?"

"Yes ma'am." Responded Rollan. Meilin give a curt nod to show that she'd heard what I said.

We walked into the gym where I told my P.E teacher the same lame excuse as this morning.

"What are your names?" He asked Meilin and Rollan.

I held my breath.

" Myra." Said Meilin. Good. Now to see what Rollan said.

" Rollan." Said Rollan. _EXCUSE ME?! WHAT DID WE JUST GO OVER? "_ With a 'd' at the end." He finished. Oh thank god. That made it 'Rolland' ,wich was a normal earth name. Yikes, what a heart attack.

My P.E the teacher got out a clipboard and started writing their names down.

" Don't forget the 'd' ." Said Rollan.

We headed over to the bigger gym to play badminton-and thankfully that was an easier sport to understand. Meilin and Rollan could just pretend they were really bad at it.

But surprisingly, they were okay at it.

We were fine for the whole class until we decided to play doubles and I forced them to be on the same team. I served the birdie over to them, and waited for it to come back. Meilin hit the birdie as hard as she could...and missed, smashing Rollan in the face instead.

I gasped.

" O-M-JHI!I'M SO SORRY!" Exclaimed Meilin, running over to Rollan. She tentatively reached out a finger and brushed the place on Rollan's cheek where she had smashed him. "Are you okay?"

Aww, this was so cute.

Rollan smiled to let her know he was all right. "I'm used to being smashed in the face by now," he joked, indicating a faint scar that was on his face.

I remembered that! The authors had mentioned it before, he'd gotten it during 'The Burning Tide'!

"The conquerors and the outbound did a good job, don't you think?" Rollan smiled at Meilin again. She smiled back. In fact, there was a great deal of invisible chemistry gathering in the air, and this was starting to get a bit sappy. But what kind of fangirl could complain about sappiness when they were experiencing real life Reilin?

Definitely not me.

Before anyone could do anything though, the bell rang. It was the horriblest, ugliest sound I had ever heard, because it interrupted my fangirl moment _and_ their awesome Reilin moment. NOT COOL. I'm sure that Meilin and Rollan were equally miserable to go for lunch, even though they would never admit it.

~…~…~…~…~…~

Last class of the day. What a relief. We miraculously made it through the whole day without anything going wrong. (Except for the part during lunch where Rollan didn't know how to use the hot water dispenser and put cold water in his instant noodles. As a result, they didn't melt and he almost made an explosion trying to microwave it.)

There wasn't that much to worry about, I realized. Nodody would expect fictional characters to jump out of their book and come to earth anyways.

I walked into my last class of the day, math (ugh why?), with Meilin and Rollan trailing behind me.

"Hi Mr. Perii!" I said cheerfully, walking through the door. But then I froze.

At the front of the room was a man wearing the blue and white colors of the alien institute. It was NOT my math teacher. Despite being on a wheelchair, he looked more imposing than anyone I had ever seen. I knew instantly who he was. My stomach twisted.

"Hello, Scarlet." He said in a voice dripping with poison.

"I am the leader of the alien institute."

* * *

 **Dun dun dun...what's going to happen to us? Sorry, I'm just evil and I love to end on cliffhangers. Thank you to all those who reviewed last time, I appreciate it very much. A special shoutout to Lionrulersroar, who reviewed every single chapter. I'll try to get the next chapter out as soon as I can, and you are sure to be one of my fave people if you review!**

 **~Scarlet**


	5. Stalkers in the shadows

**Hello, people. To get this chapter out faster, I'll start now and stop writing irrelevant stuff on the foreword.**

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"What did you do to my real teacher?" I demanded.

" That's hardly the matter right now," snapped the alien institute leader. "Now take a seat, or I'll mark you absent."

"Scarlet, we need get out of here," hissed Meilin.

I kept my eyes trained on the alien institute leader. Out of the corner of my eye, I registered Rollan flashing a hand out and the doorknob turning. The door flew open, and all three of us bolted down the hall, not caring about the stupid 'no running in school' rule.

Halfway down the hall, the speakers in the school crackled to life.

Attention, we're having a lockdown came the voice.

Oh no. A lockdown drill was for when there were criminals or unwanted visitors in the school and they locked all the doors. The alien institute leader must've told the office we were runaways or something.

I pushed myself to go faster. We had to make it out of the school before they locked the entrances. Meilin and Rollan were having no trouble with stamina, running at top speed without ever getting tired. Again, I was discouraged at how slow I was compared to them. I think I needed to train more if I was always gonna be in this kind of situation.

All thoughts of tiredness drained from my limbs as we exploded out of the main entrance seconds before the doors closed.

I gasped with relief, but we were far from safe. A contingent of Alien instituters were running towards us yelling inexorable threats that I didn't care a fraction for.

Meilin tossed a knife to Rollan and drew her sword. Rollan fumbled for the knife but didn't catch it.

" You are a horrible catcher," remarked Meilin, punching an alien instituter in the face.

" Why thank you," answered Rollan, scooping up the knife and knocking an alien instituter down in the process.

I stood there not knowing what to do. For the second time that day, I felt utterly useless. Even though I took martial arts lessons outside of school, I felt theat I would probably just be getting in the way if I tried to help.

So I let the pros handle it.

In the distance, a bus screeched to a stop down the block.

We could use it to escape from the alien instituters!

" Get to that bus!" I yelled at Rollan and Meilin.

They immediately pulled away from whoever they were fighting and sprinted towards the bus. Again, I was very disappointed at how slow I was compared to them. Hanging out with the four fallen was really killing my self esteem.

I almost didn't make it on the bus,but thankfully the doors closed a second after I got on, right in the face of the alien instituters.

I laughed despite myself. Even though that meant the alien instituters were probably super mad at us now, it was still kinda funny to have the doors close in their face.

"Scarlet. Is there any way we can contact Alicio?" Asked Meilin, pulling me out of my thoughts.

I sighed. "Yes," I replied, and pulled out my phone to call Alicio, not even caring that she was in class right now.

~…~…~…~…~

Most people in the class were silently reading.

Alicio was half reading.

Conor and Abeke were doing a pretty decent job of pretending to read. Except That Abeke's book was upside down.

Alicio sighed, reached over and turned Abeke's book the right side up for her. Even though in the SA books they knew how to read, she doubted it was the same language.

A sudden vibration startled her. Alicio snuck a look at her phone and saw that someone was calling her. It was Scarlet.

Alicio's fingers froze in the air as she debated whether to answer or not. She decided on the safe option, since she wasn't supposed to even be on her phone during class. School was over in less than an hour. It would have to wait.

Or not. Several minutes later, after the seventh time Scarlet had called her, Alicio had to ask to get out of the class to answer it. Surprisingly, the teacher let her. Probably because she was a 'good student'.

She stepped into the hallway and pressed the answer button.

Hi Alicio Came Scarlet's voice.

WHY WEREN'T YOU ANSWERING THE PHONE?! Alicio jumped as Meilin's voice blasted out of her phone,so loud that she cringed. Thankfully, there were no other people in the hall.

" I was in class," She answered. "You're not supposed to answer phone calls in class."

Well what if it was an emergency? Came Meilin's voice again.

It _was_ an emergency. Scarlet's voice sounded somewhere in the background.

"What happened?" Alicio was starting to get nervous.

There were Alien Instituters at the school! Came Meilin's voice. And one of them was their leader!

 _Oh no._ Thought Alicio. Then, repressing a sigh, she said "Meet me at my house."

~…~…~…~…~

The maximum limit of Alicio's sofa was six people.

The only reason I knew that was because all six of us were crammed on the couch, nobody knowing what to do.

"How do you think the Alien instituters always know where we are?" Asked Alicio.

" That was my question." I answered unhelpfully, since I figured I didn't have anything helpful to say.

"Any ideas? Anyone?" Alicio asked the four fallen.

" Maybe they're stalking us." Suggested Rollan, even more unhelpfully than my comment.

" Wow. _That_ helps a LOT." Said Alicio sarcastically.

"Maybe we could find an app that tells us the answer." Cut in Abeke,already tapping on the screen of her iPad.

I was about to say how such genius technology didn't exist yet, but then I remembered how on Erdas, she had apps that could control sofas and stalk people. I didn't know how she got those apps at the time, and that fact still bothered me.

"Here we go!" Said Abeke. "The ask-any-question-and-get-instant-answers app. I hope this wor-

"Okay, I'm serious. How do you get those apps?" Alicio cut her off. "If any of us searched on the App Store with normal iPads, we wouldn't find anything like that."

She was right. I wasn't the only one who found this suspicious.

" Can I see your iPad?" Asked Alicio.

Abeke handed over her iPad. I doubted she even knew why her iPad had all these weird apps.

Carefully, I watched as Aliciotook off the purple was case and flipped the device around. We gasped at the same time.

On the back, there was an alien institute logo. So that's where this freaky of technology came from. But why would they give it to Abeke? And how come we didn't know about it? Unless...

Time seemed to freeze as Alicio dug her fingernails into the edge of the hard metal shell of the iPad, and pried it off. Inside, there was some kind of card,a bunch of parts, and components I didn't understand.

But what coughs my attention was a flat metal rectangle, a tiny piece,that looked like it didn't quite fit in with the other mechanical parts.

Seeming to realize the same thing, Alicio reached in and carefully extracted the small rectangle. It glinted gold in the light, and also emblazoned with the alien institute logo.

I sucked in a breath. I knew what it was, but only ever heard of people using it in books. In the modern world, though this kind of technology wasn't anything new,such things weren't usually necessary. But yet, here it was.

"So that's how they're stalking us," whispered Alicio.

"A tracking chip."

* * *

 **I originally meant for this chapter and the next to be one single chapter, but it was too long so I cut it in half. Since it's the summer, I hope I'll get the next chapter out by the end of the month. Thanks for being patient, everyone. And please review, your reviews keep me going.**

 **~Scarlet⭐️🔥**


	6. Fruit Ninja

**Hey everyone. So I guess I got distracted with other things like summer school, so now that it's finished, I promise I WILL be updating more often.**

 **Also, in my last chapter, a lot of my punctuation marks got randomly cut out, so if that happens again, just ignore it.**

 **Okay, continuing from the last chapter...**

* * *

Surprisingly, the alien institute left us alone for the next few days. Maybe because we stuck their tracking chip in a skytrain, hopefully leading them on a wild goose chase. I would have loved it if things stayed that way, but knowing them, the alien instituters were probably still out there, scheming in the shadows.

~…~…~…~…~…~

"Why is everyone staring at us?" Whispered Abeke.

All six of us were walking on the street, and I seriously did not like the number of heads turned our way.

"What do you think?" I hissed back. "You guys are dressed like , well, _book characters._ So if you don't want people staring at you, maybe you should-"

Meilin cut me off.

"In case you were gonna suggest this, no we are NOT gonna wear stupid-ugly-horrible-super-out-of-date earth clothes, even if it's for a disguise!"

Alicio sighed loudly.

"Remember we went over this last time? On earth, _your_ clothes are out of date."

"Nonsense! I don't know what you're talking about." Replied Meilin stubbornly.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're impossible?" Asked Alicio.

"Has anyone ever told you that I'm about to punch you in the face?" Warned Meilin.

Alicio sighed extra audibly and stepped out of her place in the row we were walking in, and moved to the side farthest from Meilin.

We walked in silence for a while until Conor yelled "Hey!"

We all turned around,and saw that Conor had stopped and was staring up at a tree. Oh no, he wasn't gonna ask what a tree was, was he? I was one hundred percent sure that trees existed on Erdas.

I was about to tell Conor to stop staring at the tree like an idiot, but then Rollan narrowed his eyes, clearly seeing something the rest of us didn't. He ran over to the tree and started staring at it too. Knowing something was definitely up, we all went over and took a look at the tree.

Sure enough, there was a very suspicious red sphere on one of the higher branches. Something about it seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't quite place my mind on it.

"That's the talking apple that was in the park." Said Rollan, still eyeing the apple suspiciously.

"How do you know it's the same one?" Questioned Meilin. "I mean, apples are everywhere."

"Yes, but this one is always on the wrong kind of tree," pointed out Rollan. "See? This tree isn't an apple tree."

Abeke bit her lip. "Do you think this apple could be related to the alien institute?"

No one answered, but that was probably because we were all thinking the same thing and fearing the answer. But we couldn't jump to conclusions, at least not yet,when we still knew so little.

Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the apple floated off the tree. I swiped at it, but missed, and the apple streaked away over our heads.

All six of us looked at each other for a second.

Then, reluctantly, we bolted down the street after the apple, turning an insane number of heads in our direction.

~…~…~…~…~

After a good five minutes of full out running, I felt like I was ready to die of exhaustion. I had a million cramps all over me, and every single muscle in my body was sore.

I skidded around a sharp corner and slammed right into something that was at the same time hard and soft.

"Owww,Scarlet," complained Abeke, getting up and brushing herself off.

"Sor-ry" I muttered. "It wasn't my fault you decided to stop in the middle of the road."

"I had to stop!" Abeke protested. "We're at a dead end!"

I looked ahead. Sure enough, on two sides of us, rose two buildings, and a third blocked one end of the narrow alley we were standing in. They were too tall for the apple to fly over.

"Ha! You're trapped!" Rollan smirked triumphantly. He released Essix, who flew up and blocked the airspace, preventing the apple from escaping over our heads.

But strangely, the apple made no attempt to escape. It was almost as if it were waiting for something...

"Are you sure about that? I think _you're_ trapped." I whipped around to see who had spoken, and to my horror, I saw the alien institute leader, looking as imposing as ever, even in his wheelchair.

"How dare you stalk us with your drones?" Shouted Alicio.

"Well,well. Look who figured it out. Straight 'A' student, huh?" The alien institute leader smiled evilly, and he raised a hand. From behind us, the apple flew over and landed smack center in the alien institute leader's palm. He curled his hand around it. "These smartly programmed drones make good spies, don't you think? And since you brought this up, let me take the opportunity to show you the rest of my drones!"

He pressed a button on a cuff on his wrist, and fruits began streaming out from behind him. I recognized them. They were the same fruits that had been talking and fighting each other in the store we went to a few days ago. Now that the pieces fit together, this all made sense.

At first, all the fruit drones that appeared were small fruits, like berries. But as the fruits steadily became bigger, I started to worry. There were at least fifty of them, and by the time the stream stopped, there were fruits as big as watermelons and honeydews. The last fruit to appear was a king durian. It looked like a wrecking ball, complete with the spikes and all. I gulped.

"Let's play a game," languished the alien institute leader. If you can defeat all of my drones, then I'll leave you alone. For now. If you get hit or splattered by one of the fruits, you're out."

Without waiting for a response, the fruits started flying at us.

I immediately got hit, and so did Alicio. Rollan and Conor weren't that far behind. My heart sank. The only one left on the battlefield was Meilin. But as I watched, she cut through the fruits with ease, spinning and whirling in a fury of blades. Meilin was single-handedly taking down the entire fruit army! Wait...but where was Abeke? Nevermind that. She was probably out too.

"GO MEILIN!" I screamed.

It was only a matter of minutes before the entire fruit army was demolished. Meilin was just sliding her sword back into its sheath when a round black ball blurred through the air, straight at her. With lightning fast reflexes, Meilin pulled out her sword and sliced the sphere in half. What happened next shocked me.

The ball exploded, sending Meilin flying across the alley. She slammed into a wall and crumpled to the ground, unconscious.

"MEILIN!" Yelled Rollan, running towards her. Me, Alicio and Conor followed.

"Okay," Said Alicio. "You hold her legs and I'll take her arms, and we can carry her over to— Nevermind." She stopped when she saw that Rollan was already carrying Meilin towards a huge green metal garbage bin. Behind it, she would be safe from more attacks.

I would've made some kind of Reilin fangirl comment if not for the gravity of the situation. Instead, I turned to the alien institute leader.

"YOU NEVER SAID THERE WOULD BE A BOMB AT THE END!" I screamed. "That's not fair!"

The alien institute leader frowned disdainfully.

"Don't you guys ever play Fruit Ninja? There's always bombs in there, just be glad I only threw one." With that,he turned and with one push of a button on his wrist cuff, all the fruit drones reanimated themselves. "The more important thing is, you lost. So now it's time to come with me, kids."

"Not so fast!" Abeke stepped out from behind the garbage bin, tapping at something on her iPad. "It's my turn."

"No second chances." Said the alien institute leader tartly.

"Well I didn't even have a chance yet."

"Really? Hiding just so you could be wiped out in the second round?"

"You won't win this time."

"You sound so sure of yourself." The alien institute leader's gaze shifted and came to rest on the iPad she was holding. "Oh, And That's my special iPad you have there. Give it back now, I only gave it to you because of the tracking chip, and you fools took it out."

So that was why Abeke's iPad had so many weird, impossible apps. If the alien institute could make drones disguised as fruits and design tracking chips that fit into iPads, a bit of clever programming could maybe, possibly make those weird apps too.

"If you win, I'll give it to you." Responded Abeke calmly. "But for now, I'll need it." Then she tapped on the screen a few more times, and set the device on the ground. To everyone's surprise, she made a chopping motion through the air, and a streak of light appeared right where her hand had sliced the air, fading after a few seconds. "The Fruit Ninja simulation app." Said Abeke proudly. "Let's go. I'm ready."

Fruits started flying towards her. When the first fruits were two meters away, Abeke sliced the air in front of them, and the fruits fell to the ground in pieces. I wondered how such technology was even possible. But again, characters jumping out of a book weren't that possible either. With the advantage of distance, Abeke got rid of most of the fruits before they came anywhere near her. In even less time than Meilin had taken, the fruits were all defeated.

But Abeke remained alert. Sure enough, a bomb flew out of the air a few seconds later. Abeke leaped out of the way, and the bomb hit the ground harmlessly.

I cheered.

Abeke bounced over to where her iPad was still on the ground, and picked it up, smiling when she saw the screen.

"High score!" She announced triumphantly.

The alien institute leader huffed angrily,clearly not pleased at being beaten.

"YES ABEKE!" Everyone was so excited that nobody noticed when the alien institute leader pulled out a gun and aimed it at us. A boom was the only indication we had before a bullet was flying through the air, straight at Rollan.

Before Rollan could react, a flash of brown and white streaked in front of him, taking the hit.

"Essix!" Gasped Rollan as the falcon tumbled to the ground in a flurry of feathers. He kneeled on the ground beside her, unsure what to do.

From somewhere down the alley, thought I heard the alien instituter leader mutter 'Rats, wrong gun.'

What was that supposed to mean? Had he meant to shoot Rollan with a different gun? And what would the other gun have done differently than—

My thoughts were cut off by a flash of movement behind the green dumpster. Meilin burst out, scooped up a broken coconut shell on the ground, and chucked it at the alien institute leader just as he pressed a button on his cuff to create a swirling blue vortex behind him. THe last thing we heard was a crack and a splat before he disappeared in a flash of light.

"Dammit" Muttered Meilin.

I personally hoped that the coconut shell had it him before he'd teleported out of there.

"What happened while I was unconscious?" Demanded Meilin. Then her gaze flicked over to where Essix was still in a pile of feathers on the ground, and she gasped, summoning Jhi. The panda ambled over to Essix.

Honestly, I didn't know if I should feel relieved that Meilin was okay, or worried that Essix was not. If anything, Rollan looked even more torn between those two than I felt.

My anxiety calmed down a bit when Jhi pulled the bullet out of Essix's wing with her teeth. Rollan took it from her, frowning when he looked at it closer.

"What's 'Humanizing serum' supposed to mean?" He asked, sounding confused. But before anyone could answer, a blinding flash of light engulfed Essix's still form, and when it cleared, the falcon was no longer there.

In her place, stood a girl with brown hair that turned silver at the ends and piercing amber eyes, wearing a dress made entirely of falcon feathers.

"Finally," she said "I get to say what's on my mind."

* * *

 **So I took a long time on this chapter because it's almost twice as long as my other chapters. Like always, I'll try to get the next chapter out fast, but knowing me, that's not likely going to happen anytime soon. I can't apologize enough to you guys. Anyways, plz review and all that stuff I say every time.**

 **~Scarlet**


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